igc-net Protocol Specification

Open protocol for publishing, discovering, and exchanging IGC flight logs over a peer-to-peer network.

Purpose

igc-net defines a neutral, content-addressed exchange layer for raw IGC flight logs and associated metadata. It is protocol-first and implementation-language independent.

The protocol is designed so that:

• identical IGC bytes produce identical BLAKE3 hashes across all publishers
• any node can publish or index flights without central registration
• metadata and derived analytics can evolve independently of any single application
• independent implementations in Rust, Python, Go, or other languages can interoperate from the specification alone

Document Set

Read in this order:

1. specs_igc.md — raw IGC blob model, announcement wire format, topic IDs, node identity, fetch flow, and verification rules
2. specs_meta.md — base metadata schema and the optional analytics extension
3. requirements.md — functional and non-functional requirements and protocol-level constraints
4. metadata-schema.md — compact field-by-field reference for the base metadata schema
5. getting-started.md — implementation-oriented onboarding for new protocol implementers

Status

• Base protocol and base metadata schema: specified and implemented in the Rust reference implementation
• Analytics extension (IGC_META_DOC / Part II): specified, but not yet implemented in the Rust reference implementation
• Public protocol release: not yet tagged

Repository Boundary

This repository contains protocol and schema documentation only. It does not define language-specific APIs.

The Rust reference implementation lives in the separate igc-net-rs repository. That implementation is informative for interoperability and current state, but this specification repository is the canonical source of truth for protocol semantics.

Core Identifiers

The current canonical v1 identifiers are:

• metadata schema: igc-net/metadata
• announce topic derivation string: igc-net/announce/v1
• analytics topic derivation string: igc-net/analytics/v1
• analytics namespace derivation prefix: igc-net/meta-doc/v1
• standard analytics type namespace: igc-net/*

These identifiers are normative. Implementations that use different strings do not interoperate.

Governance

Initial maintenance is by NTNU DSE Lab. Protocol changes should be reviewed via GitHub issues and pull requests. See CONTRIBUTING.md.